Nicholas Carr (HBS), Jonathan Schwartz (Sun), and David Berlind (Znet) have all endorsed the Massachusetts draft policy on open data.

(Microsoft’s comments are here. Links to those by PFF, ACT, and IPI are here. More PFF thoughts are here.)

Leaving aside the philosophical points, Carr is enraptured by the fact that:

As described in a comprehensive technical paper, called the Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM), the state aims to make a transition "from siloed, application-centric and agency-centric information technology investments to an enterprise approach where applications are designed to be flexible, to take advantage of shared and reusable components, to facilitate the sharing and reuse of data where appropriate and to make the best use of the technology infrastructure that is available."

1. The obvious - does the statement actual mean anything or is it this year’s technobabble?

2. If the state is presented with such an option on a turn-key basis by technically adept companies, it should seriously consider buying it. But why is it the state’s role to decide that this should be the shape of the technological future?

3. For heaven’s sake, governments at every level are showing a stunning degree of incompetence about performing the most straightforward functions, ranging from delivering mail to teaching to evacuating citizens from an oncoming flood. Why does anyone think that any of them are capable of carrying out sophisticated technical policies? Perhaps we should put the people in charge of the Big Dig in control of this new initiative. (It came in 10 years late, $11 billion over-budget and triple the original estimate, and guess what – it has hundreds of leaks and its safety is in question.)

4. Do none of these people take seriously the problems of public choice and rent-seeking – the distortion of government into serving the interests of its supposed servants and its capture by special interests? (Carr notes that the committee that pushing the MA standard “is dominated by representatives from Sun and IBM, two companies with an interest in undermining Microsoft's control of office software.”)

posted by James DeLong @ 2:07 PM |

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